


Learning Curve

by jazzypizzaz



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: First Kiss, Humor, M/M, Solid!Odo, short and dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 19:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14432223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzypizzaz/pseuds/jazzypizzaz
Summary: Odo doesn't know how to kiss, but Quark isn't complaining.  Well, maybe a little.“Are you going to do anything else or is this it?”





	Learning Curve

Quark liked to pride himself on timing. Business -- all business personal and professional, but particularly for Quark as bar owner and part-time schemer -- required the ability to read people, to be able to tell if yes now was the time to add a fifty-percent markup "hospitality fee" to a patron's bill, or no not yet wait until he's ordered one more Black Hole past good sense and buys another round for his buddies.

Not that every deal turned out perfectly for Quark.  Not that he wasn't slapped, threatened, pushed around, or screwed over more often than he'd prefer.  Far from it.  He was still a gambler after all and that meant taking risks when the present information didn't make an outcome sure. 

But Quark at least liked to think his sense of timing was more fine-tuned, though not infallible, for people he knew.

And he knew Odo better than the odds on his dabo wheel.

Yet here Quark was, stone-still, lips parted, and otherwise unable to close the gap.  To spin the wheel, so to speak, and land on a long awaited _dabo!_ that that gap represented.The gap that was between Odo’s intense face lingering inches away from his own. An optimal, tension-filled gap Quark recognized from many flirtatious encounters over the years, but never never before (or at least he tried to convince himself) with Odo.  And now that it was here, he couldn't bring himself to close it.

It was Odo’s fault, changing routine like this, anyway. They were always up in each other’s personal space after all – all the better to one up each other, to catch the other off guard in the daily game they play. But in all that time, through no small amount of innuendos and outright advances, despite his daydreams, Quark had always been sure that those pursed not-lips were never one delightful mistake away from kissing him.

Odo as a changeling, among his many faults, hadn’t had a desire to kiss anyone, or so he claimed.

(Or an inclination to gamble, or hunger, or thirst, or an eye for frivolities… The only thing Quark had, that Odo wanted, was the chase.)

Now, however, Odo was as humanoid as the rest of them.

They were always up in each other’s space, but not like this.

“From this close, I can smell you use standard Bajoran rationed toothcleaner, horridly bland,” Quark pattered, just for something to say, “but if you want a fresher smelling breath for only a couple slips of latinum I can sell you–”

“Oh shut up,” Odo growled back, quieter than usual, and Quark didn’t have time to think of a response before finally finally after so many blue-lobed (at least for Quark) years, Odo closed that gap.

He kissed Quark.

Well… almost.

Quark liked to think he could tell when someone was about to kiss him so he could be ready with a pleasing response, but it still took several timestopped, wait-this-has-to-be-a-dream breathless bewildered moments for him to realize what was going on.

Odo had met Quark’s mouth with his own, and then, flesh-to-flesh, stopped.

No kissing, no wetness, no exploration, no change in pressure or even the slightest movement after the initial meeting of mouths.

Quark could smell the remnants of Bajoran standard issue shaving cream now as well. He could hear Odo’s heart pounding, and he could hear his own heart pounding, and he could hear the silence from both of them holding their breaths. He blinked a few times. Odo’s eyes were closed.

Nope, not a dream.

“Well are you going to do anything else or is this it?” Quark tried to say.

Tried to, but was muffled, since his lips had moved against where Odo’s would be (if he had proper lips).

“Isn’t this enough?” Odo said, annoyed and equally muffled against Quark, but his hands (which had at some point migrated to Quark’s upper arms) clenched slightly.

“No,” Quark said, deliberately exaggerating the word so his lips dragged all over Odo’s.

“Fine then. Leave,” Odo said, but he also held Quark in place, preventing a withdrawal from their strange embrace.

The movement of Odo's mouth against Quark’s sent an electric thrill through his lobes.

Quark didn’t want to go anywhere.

"I don't want to go anywhere."

Odo chuckled, and oh wait had Quark said that out loud??

“Hmph, well I _do_ have places to be,” Odo said, pulling away and leaving Quark off-balance. “As I recall, you’re expecting a secret shipment of unlicensed Bajoran pottery at Cargo Bay 2. I need to be there to confiscate it in five minutes.”

With another patented Odo grunt (of amusement? fondness?), he turned and walked away, leaving Quark dazed in the hall.

Oh shoot, the pre-Oralian deal! Quark had entirely lost track of the afternoon… And Odo certainly wasn't supposed to know about that.

“I don’t know anything about that!” Quark yelled off down the hall at Odo, then hustled to catch up.

Okay, so Quark didn’t always have the best timing, but he was still confident in his ability to read people. And, sniping alongside Odo on the way to the now-ruined exchange, Quark didn’t miss the pink tinge to Odo’s cheeks, or the way every so often his eyes lingered on Quark’s lips.

They would kiss (or whatever that was) again. Quark knew now it was only a matter of time.  He couldn't hardly wait.


End file.
